Parenting Check-In

ATXmommas · May 2014

What's going on with everyone's littles?

QOTD: I've been feeling a little overwhelmed lately - what are some ways you cope with all your competing responsibilities?

2brides · May 2014

My littles aren't so little! I can't believe they are going to be 8y in 6 days! We are in full birthday planning mode as we have 14 7-8y olds descending on our house next Saturday for a Minecraft themed party.

QOTD: I totally get this. With 2 full time jobs (and from now until August 8th, L has to bill 60 hrs/week), lengthy commutes, and 2 kids we are always on the go and have 1001 balls in the air. Things that help us:

Scheduling everything and keeping our phone calenders up to date. We have who will takes/pick up the kids on which days (it tends to be consistent, but sometimes changes),, reminders for paperwork due, appts, work commitments, etc. Having a shared Google calender is awesome.

Hire if you can. I swear that house cleaners saved our marriage. It is so nice to come home to a clean house. We also hire out for small household repairs. Yes, we (okay, L) could do a lot of them, but spending 3-4 hrs fixing something that will take an experienced person 20m isn't worth it to us.

We pretty much divvy up responsibilities ahead of time (I am in charge of all paperwork, medical appts, packing lunches, most dinners, making sure the kids have what they need (soccer clothes in their backpack, etc. L is in charge of all school things (correspondence with teacher/PTA meetings/school projects/volunteering at school), party planning, yard work, and baking. Yes, we can and do each other's stuff (L makes the kids' lunches on Wednesday nights when I am out and I volunteer at school when I can), but in general we know the expectations.

We multitask like crazy. L can bill the time she has work calls to/from work - so she tries to work as much of her commute as possible. When I am home alone, I am often cooking dinner, helping with homework, unpacking lunch boxes, and repacking lunch boxes at the same time.

If you ahve to get up and get out the door in the AM, do as much as possible the night before. All lunches are packed and in the fridge, backpacks are packed and by the door - this applied to when we were carrying diaper bags too!

Keep your house organized so you don't spend forever looking for things. The kids shoes go in a basket by the door - they are always there. Clothes go from washer to dryer to drawer so we are never hunting down clothes. Lunchboxes get emptied and put back in the same place. As 'un-neat' as I am, L has really instilled this in me and it helps so much!

Give yourself a break! Not everything is going to be perfect all the time! Between the craziness of last week and a hectic weekend, our house was a wreck last night. We spent a few hrs decluttering and getting things ready for the week, so we could start the week anew.

Life is crazy with a baby (or two!) - but it gets exponetionally easier as they get older!

trisholio · May 2014

Both girls are doing great!. M has a lost a little weight due to being such a picky eater, but nothing drastic. We are working on getting her to eat more and more healthy. She has such a personality and is showing her independant side for sure! We had a few rough days last week, she just refused to listen to anything I had to say, but things seem to be improving.

K is growing like a weed. She is still a chunker at almost 23lbs and she will be 9 months next week. She is crawling on all fours, and also army crawling when she wants. She just started pulling herself up on our coffee table, baby gate, ect and now she is a pro at it. I could just sit and watch her for hours, it so fascinating to watch her learn and do new things.

We spent the day at my moms house yesterday and both girls had a blast. Gigi (my mom) had them both stripped down to their diaper and playing in a kiddie pool, helping plant flowers and swinging in the new baby swing. Needless to say they were both worn out last night! K slept from 8pm to 7am (which is not usual for her) and M slept her usual 12 hours.

QOTD:I can so relate to feeling overwhelmed! My wife works full time and right now she is working overtime since its available. I stay home with the girls and having their visits once a week, usually a meeting or two with social workers another day a week on top of trying to keep our house in order. My wife does most of the cleaning on the weekends (she doesn't like me being pregnant and around cleaning fumes) and I do the little stuff during the week. It seems like we just get by. There are so many extra things that need to be done and our to do list just keeps getting longer. On top of normal life stuff we are trying to find a place to move and therefore have not prepared for the baby at all because we don't know if we are going to stay here or not. My mom and sister try and help out, but my sister is 34 weeks pregnant and shouldn't be picking up the girls and she is still working full time as a bartender and on her feet constantly. My mom is doing her best to be there for my sister and I both, but she can only do so much also. I guess I am starting to complain, sorry about that. I am lucky to have my wife that works so hard and yet does so much around the house too! I know its going to get crazier before it gets better, but that is ok (most days) I try to remind myself that I am so blessed to stay home with my beautiful girls and that I am lucky to be pregnant with our little bundle of the joy. But any ideas or tips would be greatly appreciated too :-)

ATXmommas · May 2014

I don't have time for my check-in right now, but wanted to thank everyone for their responses. I appreciate the tips for coping as well as for everyone sharing their own struggles. One piece of the puzzle is knowing we're not alone in figuring out how to balance it all.

And holy moly, @jrtmom‌, what an amazingly adorable kid you have there! I want to reach through my screen and give him a squeeze!

I'll be back to check in this evening!

JGY · May 2014

@jrtmom you've got PM.

This morning Gabe (13 months) signed "Please." I don't think I've been quite as happy about any other milestone development as I am for this one. We've been really working on it for a few weeks and my heart just exploded. I'm so excited.

On Friday, within the span of about 12 hours, I watched him give himself a black eye and a bloody nose. So for Mothers' Day I got a Parent-Of-The-Year award.

QOTD: I totally agree with everything that @2brides said. I especially agree with the hiring out of cleaning. Both S and I really bucked that thought for a long time. I think we both felt like if we weren't able to accomplish the basics like keeping our living space clean, then there was something really wrong. Then Gabe was born. And that went out the window. Along with it, so went many of our little arguments. And to answer the question above, we have it done every other Friday. We have 2 adults, 1 child, 1 hairy dog and 1 hairy cat. We could certainly use a more regular cleaning, but this at least keeps me from wanting to cry every time I come home.

As for handling other stress when I'm feeling overwhelmed? I'm still looking for additional strategies. But I will say that accomplishing something, anything, no matter how little, always makes me feel better when I start to get overwhelmed. Lucky for me there's a pretty much endless stream of laundry to be done. So there's always an opportunity to do SOMETHING.

Have a great week, everyone!

Pinkspark · May 2014

The nuggets are doing well, we had our 1 month old photo session at the end of last week! I feel like we took so many photos and only a few were any good.

Little man is on cast #2 for his club foot, we had the second one put on today and he really HATES it for the first few hours. ..But it's for the best and he won't even remember the casting process!

Little lady is about to have her heart procedure for her pulmonary valve stenosis at our Children's hospital on Wednesday morning...she has to be there for prelim testing tomorrow so she and I will be staying at the hospital until Thursday. I'm getting nervous, and it's hard to basically split the family up since they only allow one parent to sleep bedside, and no siblings.

QOTD:

I think we are in survival mode- I just do what I gotta do and then onto the next task without thinking about it too much. As for all the doctors appointments and stuff like that, we use a big calendar on the kitchen wall and write stuff in so that we're on the same page. Works so far!

2brides · May 2014

jrtmom said:

@2brides - I think starting in September (L will be taking a break from school over summer) I am going to hire a house cleaner. How often did you have your house cleaned? We hired someone to do our yard work last month and it has made a HUGE difference.

They come weekly. L has a very low tolerance for dirt/mess, so when they were coming every other week, she felt she/we still needed to vacuum, dust, etc on the off weeks (we maintain the kitchen/bathrooms with daily wipe ups and run the cordless vac in the kitchen when needed.) Truth be told, we are going to re-do our budget next month and we may be going back to every other week. They didn't come last week and the house is still standing....and doesn't look horrible. With us being at work/school 11 hrs of every day and running around on the weekends, the house doesn't get too dirty.

We have 2 cats in addition to 2 adults and 2 8y olds.

mwagner25 · May 2014

@Pinkspark‌ you guys have a lot on your plates... Survival mode is probably the best you can hope for right now. I hope you have some family/friends nearby for support. We will be thinking about you this week.

We are doing well. I was off work today and we had our sleep consultation. We got tons of great info and had some things we needed to change (which I figured ). Turns out I am more of the problem than L... It's hard though cuz I kinda like Oliver needing me for comfort and sleep. But at the same time it's not fair for me to confuse him and expect him to sleep on his own sometimes and with me others. So, L gets to start bedtime and night waking duty for the next week, then I will be able to start again.

QOTD: I was really overwhelmed at first. When Oliver was first born L took a promotion at work and was graduating/taking finals. I felt like all household and child responsibilities fell on me. When Oliver was 2.5 months I started to have a bit of a breakdown, L finally realized that I was barely keeping everything together and ended up quitting her job (it was stressful, low paying at a magazine). Since then we have really found a good split on our responsibilities. We both take time away with friends when we can. We are talking about moving to Minnesota to be closer to family also. We can give each other breaks here but don't have the family support for both of us to get out for date nights ect. We will definitely move before baby #2. Everyone's comments today are making me think about maybe looking at our budget for some housecleaning .

ATXmommas · May 2014

My happy baby is back! I think during last week's check-in, I mentioned he was recovering from a virus (in addition to his ongoing ear infection) and had been pretty miserable. Turns out several of the kiddos in his class had the same virus. What a nasty virus. We were so happy to see him feeling better. He is just so much fun, lots of smiling and laughing. And, his baby coos seemed to have gone up a notch on the baby-talk spectrum. Lots of jibber jabber over the past several days.

Since we have decided to go the baby-lead weaning route, we are waiting until 6 months to give solid food - less than 2 weeks away at this point. On a whim I decided to give him a little piece of avocado last night. He took the first piece and put it in his mouth and after a little fiddling with it in his mouth, he swallowed it no problem. I gave him another piece a few minutes later and after smushing it in his hand a little it, he put it in his mouth. I don't know what happened in the three minutes between the first and second bite, but he did not enjoy it. Got a disgusted look on his face before gagging, spitting it out, then throwing up. Ha. We'll try again in a few days.

Still not sleeping that great - I mean, I think his sleep patterns are typical, just hard on us. But, I'm functional.

QOTW: Okay - so, I mentioned a while back that my boss retired and I was asked to be the interim director until the position is filled (and presumably I will be offered the position, but haven't been yet). Work has been tough lately - lots to do, which isn't unusual, but normally I'm not doing my job as the lead analyst along with the director job. Work is making me very anxious because there simply isn't enough time during the work day to get everything done. I don't have much time during the work week evenings do get extra work done because my time is spent cooking/eating dinner, playing with my son a bit, nursing him a bunch, and going to bed early in order to be functional after waking at least three times during the night and getting up at 5:30am. I've had to spend a few hours working on the weekends, which I hate because it takes time away from my family. I hope that once I am officially offered the position and can hire my replacement, things will feel calmer and less anxious about balancing work and home.

Z is a huge help at home, which I appreciate, but we're in the same boat as some of you about having different ideas of cleanliness. Z always say that I "like" to clean. I tell her that it's not that I like cleaning (in fact, I DON'T like cleaning), but I do want to live in a relatively clean home. We hired someone to help clean our house every other week about a year and a half ago. I'm seriously considering asking her to come every week if/once I get a raise.

One area that I struggle with a bit is that Z is still able to do a lot of the things she loves - like workout, swim, bike, and run. She's now in talks with our running company about providing a strength class in the evenings once a week. It would be a great opportunity for her to network (she's a physical therapy assistant) and recruit clients, but I feel so conflicted. On the one hand, I'm happy proud and supportive. On the other hand, I want her home! I also feel jealous of the independence she has that I don't because of my nursing relationship. Don't get me wrong, I love nursing and it's definitely the right choice for us, but unless i want to pump more than I already do (3x day during the work week), which I DON'T, I can't be away from him that long on the weekends and definitely can't (and don't want to) be away from him during the work week evenings. So, it's just a constant feeling of being ON, not even an hour away to enjoy yoga or a good run. I need to try and incorporate an hour or two of alone time during the weekends when I'm not working or doing errands (like paying bills, calling insurance, etc.) to do something for me.

I know I'm just rambling, so I'll stop here. I enjoyed reading what other had to say (@2brides - sounds like y'all have a well oiled machine! Lots of practice and trial and error went into that, I'm sure!).

ATXmommas · May 2014

@pinkspark - thinking about you and both your little ones. Hope all goes well on Wednesday.

2brides · May 2014

ATXmommas said:

(@2brides - sounds like y'all have a well oiled machine! Lots of practice and trial and error went into that, I'm sure!).

Yes, we've had a long time to fine tune our processes!

But going back to what you said about Z having more free time/time away - I get it. I nursed/pumped for a year and was hardly away from them (aside from work) during that time...and it was hard (I understand the 'always on'.) If you can get home, nurse him, and go run an errand - something fun/go for a quick run/whatever while Z makes dinner and hangs with A. Come home, eat dinner, nurse again (and again...and again) and do bedtime. If it isn't doable, know that this part of your relationship with A won't last forever and you won't be tied to him in this way and it will be easier to find a balance. Good luck!

JGY · May 2014

mwagner25 said:

We are talking about moving to Minnesota to be closer to family also.

WOOT WOOT!!!!

CageyMack · May 2014

Sorry so late, as usual.

William is thriving. He burst out in many signs lately (banana, more, all done), and we are pretty sure he said "banana." It's kind of great. He has been digging dunking a basketball, sleeping much better, thanks to allergy medication, we think. We loathe to use meds on the baby, but after 6 weeks of coughing, it was a necessary evil. Because he's been sick (albeit just a bit sick) for so long, we think maybe he has a little fluid on his ears which is holding back his language. So he'll see the audiologist to make sure he is okay.

QOTW: In order to handle the competing pressures, I left one: work. I just can't do a 40 hour work week, hours of commuting, home care, cooking, etc., and picking up and dropping off the kids. DW has a 60+ hour a week job, and so something had to budge. I was laid off, and I'm looking for work, but it has to be the right thing for me to jump back into that horror.

Life is awesome now! Of course I get overwhelmed by laundry and dog-hair and dishes, but mostly it is just so, so, so much better. I spend a lot more time with both kids, and when my DW is home, we enjoy ourselves instead of frantically trying to play catch up.

I'm a lucky lady.

Jazibel · May 2014

Sorry so late to post.

@pinkspark - I'm sending you and your LO lots of good thoughts and well wishes this week. Please let us know how things are going. :-)

@2brides - I was practically taking notes reading your post. "Prepare bags the night before" Genius!! LOL. I have "diaper bags" half prepared but it would be great to use the quieter evenings rather than juggling the two kids frantically in the mornings.

Today I feel great, the sun is shining, the kiddos are napping upstairs. Owen with EV while she finishes a paper. I just finished sweeping and mopping and cleaning the downstairs. Sigh. But the last week has been ROUGH. Our darling Kaden is so sweet and nice to his little brother 95% of the time. It's the 5% where he was/is obviously experiencing some big emotions and acting out, such as grabbing for the baby, etc., that has had us stressed. For the first few days I felt like I was at my wits end, afraid to put Owen down in case Kaden tried to pick him up, or climb on him, plus Kaden on the verge of tantrums. EV was feeling pretty stressed with school and having to take a greater role with the childcare and household stuff. Of course I turned to Google and started to read about how in the world people raise more than one child simultaneously to adulthood. I discovered that Kaden's behaviors are very common place, in fact it seems most older siblings act out, some quite aggressively.

Anyway we've been working on creating more structure for Kaden, more Mama and Kaden time, and Aya and Kaden time and even some quick cuddles, etc where both EV and I try to give Kaden a little more attention. I also use all the creativity I can muster right now to engage Kaden while I'm nursing Owen to keep him involved but not feeling "put out" by the baby getting my attention. It seemed nursing was a major trigger for him. Anyway, we also set boundaries around when and how Kaden can hug and cuddle his brother. He loves Owen so much and just stares at him adoringly, so we're trying to foster that and create enough security so jealousy doesn't need to enter into the picture. Things are definitely looking up and each day has been better than the last. Yay for parenting triumphs!!

QOTD: Right now with me home full-time, I take on the household chores (cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc.) but when I go back to work later this summer I know we'll start looking into greater support, and perhaps housecleaning services. One thing I worry about in terms of working is not getting to spend the time I want to with my boys because of household chores - so having support would be great.

I really appreciated reading everyones comments and I learned a lot. I consider myself a pretty organized person - but there are many things I haven't thought of ;-)

Right now I prepare EV's lunches and breakfast for Kaden & me in the mornings before she goes off to work. With Owen needing a couple of nursing sessions in the morning I will probably start prepping EV's lunch & breakfast the night before. For the other stuff I do a little cleaning every day (our house is small and gets dirty fast with a toddler running around). I do deeper cleaning once a week (like emptying the fridge, upstairs bathrooms, etc.)

EV and I use our iPhone calendars to stay coordinated, but again since most childcare stuff falls to me during the week there is not a lot of coordinating right now. I think I might get a white board/calendar for the kitchen though once I go back to work. Especially if we're having a babysitter/nanny watch the kids during the day (so we can all communicate with one another).

JGY · May 2014

One thing that you all made me think of that hasn't been mentioned above ... we find the "Our Groceries" app to be absolutely indispensable! We both have iPhones, but it looks like they have an adroid version as well. You can access 1 single shared account on a number of different devices including a computer, so you can easily copy and paste ingredient lists from recipes, etc. to load your lists. But the real reason we love it is that you can always add a quick item right when you think of it (like in the middle of the night while I'm nursing - DOH, we need peanut butter) and then whoever gets to the store first has all the needs right at their fingertips.

To save time, we've also been known to do a "You shop, I'll inventory" system where one of us gets into the car and runs to the store while the other heads into the kitchen, takes stock of the fridge and cabinets and enters the list.

Only drawback? More than once I've been in the check-out line, having gotten everything on my list, when all of a sudden Ice Cream shows up. I don't really mind heading back for that one.

Jazibel · May 2014

Thanks @jgy! We're always texting each other or making lists, which also means we forget things and one of us ends up running back out. I'll check out the app.

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